Philosophical Perspectives of Language, Roger Stainton



Philosophical Perspectives of Language, Roger Stainton

Chapter 3, The Thing Theory of Meaning, Direct Reference

Study Questions

Concepts/Skills

Correspondence

The thing theory of meaning

The idea theory of meaning

The use theory of meaning

semantic productivity

Compositional semantics

extensional or direct reference theory of meaning

functions, arguments, values

denotation

propositional functions

semantic facts

metasemantics

logical connectives

propositions

truth tables

syntactic trees

semantic trees

mother node

sister node

existential quantifier

constituents of a proposition

syntactic form (49)

semantic form

quantifiers

quantificational form

ontological commitments

definite descriptions

indefinite descriptions

bare quantifier

scope ambiguities

wide scope

narrow scope

mediated

disguised descriptions

complex name account of descriptions

According to Stainton, what four questions are theories of meaning designed to handle?

According to Stainton, what is a “phrase book” view of meaning?

Does Stainton prefer a “compositional” model of language or a “phrase book” view? Why?

Explain why the principle of compositionality is necessary.

What major fact about language puts a serious constraint on semantic theories?

How does the notion of semantic productivity place a constraint on a theory of language?

On page 31 Stainton claims that each list on page 30 can be indefinitely extended. How is this fact important to his explanation of a constraint on the philosophy of language?

How is the semantic productivity constraint relevant to the principle of compositionality?

What is what Stainton calls a phrase book account of meaning? Why, according to Stainton, isn’t a phrase book account of meaning sufficient?

What is an extensional or direct reference theory of meaning?

Given the theory of direct reference, what is the denotation of an expression (based on semantic type)?

What phenomena in the philosophy of language does a direct reference theory explain particularly well? (33)

According to Stainton, what is the central task of metasemantics?

Given direct reference, how does one compute the denotations of non-primitive expressions? Please analyze the following sentence: “Sarah went to the library and James went to the store.”

How does the Direct Reference theory account for the meanings of verbs?

According to Stainton, what is a semantic fact?

According to Stainton, what is a metasemantic fact?

What are the four semantic types that Stainton talks about in Philosophical Perspectives on Language?

What are the three basic building blocks from which Stainton's four semantic types are constructed?

In this chapter on direct reference, how does Stainton represent verbs? (Be specific and use the technical terminology provided (i.e. argument, etc.))

What is a semantic tree designed to do?

Draw the semantic tree for the following sentence:

Sara sings.

What is a constituent of a proposition?

Give an argument for the need for quantifiers in logic and semantics.

Why can't we account for sentences with quantifiers, such as (Some people hate cats.), by interpreting the predicate as a function that operates on individuals and the noun phrase as denoting individuals?

Why, according to Stainton/Russell, shouldn’t we accept that the truth value of a sentence is its denotation?

What puzzle does Russell attempt to resolve?

How do direct theories of reference handle statements that are meaningful despite the fact that the subject of the sentence has no reference?

What is the "complex name account of definite descriptions?”

Why is Russell adamantly opposed to the complex name account of definite descriptions?”

According to Stainton, what two advantages does Russell's theory of descriptions have over the complex name account of definite descriptions?

the informativeness of some identity statements

the meaningfulness of some statements containing names of entities that do not exist

Produce the semantic tree for the following sentence

Some things have tails.

Give the wide and narrow scope interpretations of the following sentence:

All men are not tall.

Explain how Russell handles the meaningfulness of sentences such as “The round square is red.” that are meaningful even though the subject of the sentence does not exist

Why, according to Stainton/Russell, shouldn't we accept the model of language that claims that the denotation (or meaning) of a sentence is its truth value?

Explain Russell's analysis of definite descriptions.

Describe Meinong's analysis of sentences containing definite descriptions.

Consider the following analysis of description as provided by Meinong. How does Russell stick by his theory of direct reference while escaping the need to classify sentences with non-referring subjects as meaningless?

Premise 1: Sentences which contain 'the golden mountain,' 'the round square,' and so on are meaningful.

Premise 2: "The golden mountain,' 'the round square,' and so on are the logical subjects of such sentences.

Premise 3: If an expression is the logical subject of a meaningful sentence then what it denotes has "some kind of being."

Why, according to Stainton, does Russell have to accept Premise 3 of Meinong's argument?

What ontological commitments does Russell's theory of descriptions avoid?

Draw a chart indicating the meaning of each of the various expression types (i.e. names, predicates).

Why does Russell claim that some things with appear to be names are disguised descriptions rather than names.

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